3d scanning?

Our company has a scanner... I got to mess around with it on a job. It's pretty cool. The cadd work looks like a pain in the ass tho. Lol

3D scanning at some point is going to be part of your toolbox. But right now the limiting factor is the software. Expensive and extensive training for a new technology that isn't as widely adopted by engineers as one is lead to believe. It's real value is in the mechanical and industrial applications. It's hard to justify the price when a survey crew gathers all the pertinent information on almost all of the civil projects for about 1/4 of the price.

.02'

"... It's hard to justify the price when a survey crew gathers all the pertinent information on almost all of the civil projects for about 1/4 of the price..."

Maybe at a 1/4 of the daily price. Not a 1/4 of the project price.

RIEGL VMX-250 Mobile Laser Scanning system

Here is an example of a color point cloud. The topo is not a model or a mesh. The vehicle gets meshed. This is simply a registered color point cloud. Point Cloud, Accident investigation, scanned with the Z+F IMAGER® 5010C

> What do you think of 3d scanners?
I recently saw a point cloud produced from UAV photos using software on a laptop computer. The total investment for that product was a fraction of a scanner setup. While I understand that the level of precision is different, I wonder if the scanning market will be heavily undercut by this new realization of well proven photogrammetry technology.

I think you're on to something here - Trimble has intimated that in future software releases the photogrammetric images from the new V10 will be able to generate point clouds. It will be interesting to see what the resolution is.

I can see this coming too. Ground based / low level flight photogrammetry will grow in upcoming years. Computers / cameras are getting more powerful and more affordable. High accuracy is achievable.

Better than that, ther's an outfit on Linkedin that says they have software that you can use to do your surveying with only the software and a digital camera and get 2 to 3 cm acuracy. :snarky:

We use scanning a lot. Probably on occasion getting up to 50% of our work.

Most of the time it's used for jobs where conventional equipment can't do a good job.

http://www.customspatialsolutions.com.au/CSS/Recent_Projects/Recent_Projects.html

A few examples can be found here.

The main issues are hardware cost, (which is dropping) and software cost and training (which isn't). If you go into scanning with the goal of being "general purpose" scanners be prepared for a world of hurt, mixing and matching software to achieve the deliverables.
One day that will all be sorted, but not yet. Mind you, one day clients may be happy dealing with just a point cloud, which isn't a very comforting thought.

We use it for a wide range of jobs, the data blows the minds of engineers. And they save alot of money keeping all the work in house, while most firms charge 5 days processing where it will only take 1-2.

- motor vehicle incident surveys
- volumes of dig faces
- volumes of ore cones
- ascon of flood bunds and drains
- warping of structures / plant
- monitoring of tunnels and walls

Did you have any training prior to working there? I'd really like to find a job where I'd use one regularly, but I don't even know where to begin looking.

Monster.com

I didn't have any official training it was just looking over the shoulder of the senior surveyor until i knew the basic concepts and what i was trying to achieve and avoid. From there on in it was self taught. I work in mining and use the scanner at least once a day for 3-4 days of the week, the constant usage helped alot.

im jealous! that sounds like exactly what im looking for.
thanks

> im jealous! that sounds like exactly what im looking for.

Sitting on a pelican case and watching a machine do its thing. Not a bad way to way to earn a buck! 😉

"Mind you, one day clients may be happy dealing with just a point cloud, which isn't a very comforting thought."

This is one of the future concerns, that all the client will want is the point cloud data. And at that point your work becomes commodity based and the race to the bottoms begins (or continues).